Augmented reality ‘Dragons’ game has real world possibilities

On a recent drive through downtown San Francisco, Pete Mauro turned his dragon toward the Hilton on Union Square, looking for Vikings hanging around Starbucks.

Then he picked up some old barrels near the Clift Hotel and dropped them in his cart as it rolled toward San Jose.

The hotels and coffee shop were real, but the dragons and Vikings obviously were augmented reality fantasies within “DreamWorks Dragons Adventure World Explorer,” a new video game for Microsoft’s mobile phones and tablets that was released Monday.

The game, created by Microsoft and “How to Train Your Dragon 2″ producer DreamWorks Studios, pulls information from sources like Foursquare, The Weather Channel and Nokia’s HERE Maps app and drops it into the game.

“All this real-time information is being pulled in, and it’s taking the actual world that you’re driving through and transforming it into the medieval world of “How to Train Your Dragon,’ ” said Mauro, innovation and app development producer for Microsoft.

The game incorporates the real-time data as the player drives past real locations. For example, if a lot of Foursquare users checked in at a local bar, the game would show a pack of Vikings clustered around a medieval version of that establishment.

And on a road trip, the game can start and end a mission that coincides with the traveler’s itinerary.

DreamWorks is using the game to help market the movie franchise. The sequel has generated more than $352 million at the box office worldwide since its release June 13.

Microsoft has another motivation, to “show off what we’re capable of in our devices,” Mauro said. And the possibilities for augmented reality go far beyond games.

“Imagine what San Francisco during the Gold Rush would look like,” he said. “Or maybe you’d want to make a travel app and visualize a trip to Europe ahead of time.”

Microsoft is releasing a software developers kit hoping innovators will create more augmented reality apps. However, the SDK is limited to the Windows mobile platform.

But the imaginations of those developers could take augmented reality to other worlds — and mobile platforms.

Mauro demonstrates the game and talks about the possibilities in our video posted above.